Category Archives: Digital Entertainment

Advertising, Digital Entertainment, Gadgets, Stupid

Can Netbooks and Media Save Each Other?

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Here’s an interesting editorial from Ad Age.  The author, Simon Dumenco postulates that free or very cheap netbooks can save the media industry through a subscription based content model.  Hahaha!!! This is nothing new.  I remember when the first round of “Internet Appliances” tried to come out in the late 90’s early 2000’s.  There was talk that a portion of the screen would be filled with ads to pay for the cost of the hardware and the software.  That idea died quickly.  Fast forward to now … so I’m gonna get a free netbook so I can pay$xx.99/mo. for each cloud application I want to access?   Oh, and by the way, some portion of the screen will be filled with advertisements to pay for the cost of the hardware and the software.   And, wow, isn’t it great to watch Hulu on an 8-in screen — how about a 8-in portable DVD player and a Blockbuster card?

Now some words about “Netbooks.”  When I initially heard about these devices, I thought the idea was ridiculous.  Being the type of person I am, this meant I had to get one to see if I could make sense of the hype.  My parents gifted me an HP Mini 1000 for Christmas and I really like it.  It’s a great little computer for the kitchen to look up recipes, read e-mail, and do little online shopping tasks when it’s inconvenient to go up to the office and fire up my PC or “real laptop.”  I, also, use it to read manga online while in bed and it’s much easier and less worrisome to bring this little guy on trips rather than a bulky laptop, when all we want to do is e-mail and check the news while out.  I think what makes this netbook and ones like it successful is that it is not as underpowered as I expected.  My netbook has comparable technical specs to my 3-yr “real laptop” so I can watch downloaded anime in the high-def file formats and I can have a “Rich Internet Experience.”  Granted, though, it’s nothing like my gaming PC or my smokin’ media laptop.  All-in-all, I’d have to say most netbooks are nice little products suitable for people on the go, children, and people looking for a secondary PC or laptop.

And some thoughts on media:  I still go to the movies because I like to watch good movies on a big screen with a crowd.  I feel watching a good movie is a good use of $11 and 2-1/2 hours of a weekend — the key words being “good movies.”  Good or better products and good or better experiences built around these products will always attract a crowd.  I think media outlets should concentrate on the content and make delivery of the content a better experience than piracy, rather than worrying about pirates and wasting brain cells coming up with the next free-but-not-free gimmick.

Lastly, to the author’s suggestion that hardware/software companies have to become media companies — well, this is not an old idea either.  The problem is, neither hardware/software companies nor media companies want to share because each wants it all.  On top of that, there are neat anti-trusts laws protecting us consumers from something like a DellMicrosoftNBCUniversalTimeWarner catastrophe (banish the thought now!).

In conclusion, can netbooks and media save each other?  I don’t know.  However, I do know selling a product for less than it cost to make and racing to the bottom in a price war is not a viable business plan.  Neither is free content.  I think hardware/software and media companies have to do the hard work and apply business fundamentals and some good old-fashion product innovation, as well as, take away the “free candy” from consumers in order to survive and thrive.  I think Apple is a great example of this on the hardware/software side.  As for media and piracy, if you want to beat the pirates, then join them and figure out how to make a paid experience that is much more appealing than piracy.  Again, I stress, media companies should impress upon potential customers that bad people can hide malicious code in free downloads.  I think this would be a far more compelling argument against piracy than copyright violation because you are offering protection from identity theft and the like, in addition to great entertainment.  (AUGH!!! It’s so frustrating watching the media industry pointlessly twisting in the breeze …)

Digital Entertainment

Time Warner Cable Showing some Customer “Hate”

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Apparently Time Warner Cable doesn’t like their customers according to this blog entry on Slashdot.  I can’t say whether this story is true, but downloading 45GB in a weeks doesn’t sound that unusual for somebody who is using the Netflix service or iTunes to watch movies (~9 feature length movies).  So, my question is what does Time Warner want?  Do they want customers to quit their service all together and demand a government utility for the Internet?  Do they want customers to discontinue their service and rent movies and TV shows directly from Blockbuster or a kiosk?  This is the reality of rich media and they better figure out a way to make some money before they get squeezed out.  Hating your customers isn’t a way to do business.   I understand that bandwidth is expensive, but it should push them to innovate rather than to calcify and hate.  The ISPs need to understand and catch up with rich media and work with customers and the media producers to come to good solution for everyone.  If they keep hating their customers, pretty soon they won’t have any and go out of business.  And I’ll say good riddance too …

Digital Entertainment

Flash to Move to TV

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Adobe plans to expand Flash to TVs and set-top boxes.  No information on timing was giving in the article.  This seems quite natural to me in terms of interface, but I have to agree with MS on the matter of Flash’s limit video delivery capabilities.  People expect to watch HD content on their HD TVs.  Non-HD content on an HD TV looks like crap.  I imagine none of this is lost on Adobe, so it should be interesting to see what they come up with.  As for MS Silverlight, I did watch the extended Olympic coverage using the Silverlight and yay … but it wasn’t HD either, so I had to watch the video in a small window on my TV to see things clearly.  That kinda defeats the point of have a ~50-inch screen.  The other interesting part of this discussion is that Apple has yet to adopt Flash.  It makes me wonder whether they have something up their sleeve or whether they are being the same old obnoxious Apple that has some philosophical objection to Flash.  Either way it seems that Apple’s complaint that Flash is too processor intensive is a call to action since I imagine that concern would cross over into TV’s and set-top boxes too.

Here’s a link to an article/commentary about it.

Digital Entertainment

A Whole Lot of Big Files in the Clouds

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HDCloud offered HD encoding for distribution on the web.  Um … on the surface this sounds appealing, but It takes some big fat pipes to move around big files in an effective manner.  I would think serious digital film makers would have their own dedicated rendering machine.   It would be faster and fast computers are cheap.   The only way this makes sense to me is if they actually take care of putting the content on the web in various places too or actually host the big files.   Well, good luck to them …

Advertising, Digital Entertainment

More Companies Jumping on the TV Everywhere Bandwagon

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Here’s a link to an article that summarizes Disney’s Bob Iger’s thoughts on TV Everywhere.  What I find entertaining about this article and Iger’s comments is that they act as though the music industry died.  The music industry is alive and thriving under both the old and the new business models.  TV will be the same way and fighting change with DRM or by trying to make people authenticate to watch their favorite shows will be pointless because it’s too easy for anyone to screen capture content and rebroadcast it.

When I think about this issue, my thoughts go to my husband’s behavior.  He hates commercials and he hates waiting for episodes of a show to come out.  Since he’s not one of those folks at the water cooler, it’s not a priority to him to watch a show while it’s current.  Rather he waits until the season is over and then watches blocks of episodes on demand via Tivo.  He believes this as safer than Bittorent (after all you don’t know if someone has put something malicious in one those free movie or TV show files — why doesn’t the entertainment industry scare the beejeebees out of people with this argument???) and it’s definitely less work and waiting than BitTorrent.  He also feels there is value in being able to watch whatever he wants for $15.99/mo.  We still have cable, but that’s because we have a legacy deal with our broadband service provider and we don’t want to upset that apple cart.  My feeling is let the people view first run for free with commercials like they would on broadcast TV and then sell commercial free rebroadcasts or, heck let the rebroadcasts be free without commercials after a couple of weeks.  The folks who are hooked on the show will watch the first run.  As for the commericials, I will state this AGAIN:  If you want people to watch commercials, make good commercials and keep them fresh! A TV ad campaign really should last more than 2-weeks or a month at most.   I also think well integrated product placement  is a good strategy (nothing would sell more items to ‘tween girls than Miley Cyrus actually using the product in her shows).  Anyhow, I look forward to seeing if the TV and the movie execs can fight their way out of this paper sack.  Hopefully, they will bring in some savvy folks in under the age of 45 to tell them how to do this properly.